transportation on technabob...

Lately, we’ve been running into lots of unusual personal transportation vehicles. The Cool Rider is just the latest attempt to dethrone the venerable Segway from the top of the single-person transporter heap.

The Cool Rider isn’t quite as schmancy as a Segway, but it still looks like a fun way to get around. The vehicle…

The YikeBike is a new electric transport vehicle coming from New Zealand. The compact personal transporter features an innovative design that can speed you along through city streets and country roads without ever requiring you to stand up.

The sit-down electric YikeBike tops out at 20km/hr (appx. 12 MPH). An electric chainless drive powers the…

Gundam fans! Veda (Vader?) is real! And it’s in Japan of course. Fortunately the Veda International Robot Research and Development Centre isn’t out to control or enslave humanity. It’s a joint project by robotics company Tmsuk Co. along with 10 other universities and research institutions. Veda’s first project is 0 Raiser. No wait it’s Rodem…

Did you know that a year’s worth of human excrement is equivalent to 2.1 gallons of diesel? Well it is. So says Ole Jakob Johansen, an officer at Oslo, Norway’s city hall. And Johansen isn’t just spouting random, disgusting trivia: in 2010 Norway’s capital will start rolling out buses fueled with methane, which in turn…

The people behind Scarpar wanted to “extend the snowboard season” which they say is quite brief in Australia. Some say that the skateboard was made so that surfers could still surf even if waves were flat. Will Scarpar be the next step in boarding?

The Scarpar runs on two tracks and is powered by a…

A pair of designers, Jae-yun Kim & Jong-Su Lee, have come up with a speed bump that actually knows and rewards you if you’re obeying speed limits. Vehicles who just gun it upon driving over the speed bump will encounter a normal speed bump, but those who do slow down to below 30 km/h (about 19 mi/h)…

This “capsule train” concept will give each person their own little train compartment fiefdom to rule on their way to work. Their are individual capsules that fit one person, or larger 4-person capsules.

The concept was designed by Hamit Kanuni Kuralkan from Melbourne, Australia. There’s no word as to whether or not this thing will…

Here’s a speaker for your computer that’s unlike anything I’ve seen before. The Nexspeaker FS-701SW sound system is designed to look like a wee sailboat that you can set on your desk.

Left and right channel speakers are embedded into the sails, while the boat’s hull serves as the woofer. The sails are rated at…

This dramatic looking mode of transportation is said to be the modern day replacement for the skateboard.

Using a single large bicycle (or I guess that would be unicycle) wheel in front and a smaller caster in the rear for steering, it lets you achieve speeds up to 20 miles per hour, simply using your…

The guys over at dutch design firm OOOMS are best known for their wooden memory sticks, but here’s another interesting contraption that they also are responsible for.

Looking like a treadmill on wheels, the Speedy Rollator uses a special gear drive system to multiply your walking efforts and increase your pace.

While you won’t look quite…

A recently filed patent application from Sony shows that they are working on a technology that is similar to that in the ubiquitous (and superfluous) Segway Human Transporter.

The patent abstract, titled “Vehicle steerable by movement of center of gravity” describes the invention as follows:
…a vehicle which can travel in the front and back direction…